Road Trippin'

Last weekend we took the boys on a quick roadtrip to Houston for their cousin Eliza's first birthday. We decided to drive down with my mom on Friday night and come back on Saturday night. This plan was devised with the foolish hope that traveling at night would entice Hudson to sleep in the car. Not so much. Let me just preface this with the facts about Hudson as a sleeper. He is amazing, a champ really. This child sleeps a solid 12 hours at night and has multiple naps during the day. He loves sleep like his mommy loves cake. However, this wonderful sleep only occurs in his comfort zones, his crib and his nap mat at the babysitter's. He is completely inflexible with other sleep locations. He does not fall asleep in his carseat or snuggled in his loving parent's arms. He likes his bed, plain and simple. I toss him in there at 7 pm every night and don't hear a peep until morning.

So my elaborate plan of dinner, bath, jammies and a quick four hour car ride obviously blew up in my face. We were not 20 minutes down the road when the crying began. Nothing could make him happy. Not only was he up past his bedtime but I had dared to restrain him in a carseat! His crib was nowhere to be seen! It was a nightmare. I am normally not in the best of moods during a car trip anyway, so to be barrelling down the highway with my mother at the wheel while a 16 month old screamed hysterically was not high up on my list of fun times. The most painful part is that his older brother is now an expert car tripper. He had a movie player and headphones and was in heaven, we could have driven to Alaska and he wouldn't have cared. We didn't hear a word from him until about an hour in when he took off his headphones and said, "Brother, this is the part where Fwosty melts because he gets warm and I can't hear it because you are scweaming." The logic did not phase Hudson and his calm rationality made me want to snatch those headphones off his head and put them on my bleeding ears. Needless to say, my patience was worn thin especially when Matt wanted to stop at every gas station that had a sign in the window that said Fresh Fudge, Free Samples. There is officially nothing worse than trying to shove gas station fudge into your baby's mouth in a pathetic attempt to get him to stop crying.

We finally made it after what felt like days on the road. The boys had a blast at the party and we were so happy to be a part of Eliza's big day. But the whole time one thought was at the back of our minds....the ride home. We stuck with our original plan of night driving and just prayed that he would be so exhausted from the hard partying and saying hi and bye to 1000 people that he would be able to handle it and his mother wouldn't have to throw him out the car window. Thank goodness it was better, he was flat out exhausted and fell asleep right away. We took advantage and hauled it out of Houston at illegal speeds. We felt like we were in a getaway car, but by God nothing was going to stop us while that baby was asleep.

We got home safe and sound and dumped the boys in bed, then Matt and I just sat in our living room in a daze. I stood up to go upstairs and much like Scarlett O'Hara holding up her turnips, I clutched Matt's bag of fudge to my chest and announced, "With God as my witness I will never road trip with my toddler again!" Matt didn't really appreciate the reference but it made me feel empowered and I will take whatever I can get:)